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How Free Markets Will Beat Climate Change: Q&A with UCLA's Matthew Kahn

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 00:00:00 EDT

"My unsexy bumper sticker for adapting to climate change," says UCLA Professor of Economics, the Environment, and Public Affairs Matthew Kahn, "is 'Give free markets a chance!'"

Kahn, the author of Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future , argues that "well-meaning government actions" designed to combat the effects of global warming need to be scrutinized more than they have been. Despite the hostility to markets and economic development shared by many green activists, Kahn says that "free-market capitalism" provides the most flexible - and most progressive - solution to environmental issues. Climate change is coming, he avers, and raising the urban poor's standard of living and generating new technological innovations will do far more to improve things than top-down attempts to control energy use and consumption patterns.

About 7 minutes. Produced by Sharif Matar.

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Remy: Missing You - The Incandescent Light Bulb Song

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST

Remy mourns the impending loss of his beloved incandescent light bulbs with a song set to familiar music.

Written and performed by Remy and produced by Meredith Bragg.

About 2.30 minutes. Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions.

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Visit the links below for more Reason's coverage of the impending light bulb ban:

Let There Be Light: The Dim Bulbs in Congress Have Condemned Me To Pee in the Dark

Blue Light Special: Psst... Wanna Buy A Light Bulb?

Light Bulbs vs. The Nanny State

For more Remy & Reason.tv vids go here.

For even more Remy, go to his YouTube page.

Lyrics to "Missing You: The Incandescent Light Bulb Song"

Seems like yesterday
we used to rock the show
I flip the switch
you rock the glow

So far from being
only luminescent
notoriously
incandescent

but looks ain't always
what they seem to be
Congress taking
you away from me

this new bulb
costs 10 times more
need a haz-mat crew
when it hits the floor

and the future can't
wait to see
what they look like
in my vanity

Ridiculous

Night they took
my friend
Try to block it out
but it plays again

they say the change is
what we need to make
got salmonella from
my Easy Bake

give anything to hear
half your breath...
I know you're still living
you life after death

Every time I see
Every time I read
Every time I breathe
exposed Mercury
I'll be missing you...

It's kinda hard
with you not around
new bulb warms up
in like a half an hour

watching us as
we pray for you
every day we
pray for you

until the day
we meet again
in the dark
is where I'm reading fried

give anything to hear
half your breath...
I know you're still living
your life after death

Somebody tell me why...
If that new light
bulb is so amazing
Then why don't people just go buy that light bulb?

[End]

The Truth About Fracking

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:00:00 EDT

Hydraulic fracturing - or "fracking" - is a fast-growing source of natural gas used to create electricity, heat homes, and more. It involves forcing water, sand, and chemicals into super-deep wells and then recovering the gas released during the process.

Fracking is also highly controversial, with viral video hits such as "The Fracking Song" and the 2010 documentary Gasland contending that the process leads to polluted drinking water, home explosions, and worse.

Fracking has been around for more than 60 years and over 100,000 gas wells are dug per year, most of them in sparsely populated areas in the western U.S. With the discovery of the Marcellus Shale in the eastern part of the country, fracking is increasingly common in populated parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York, leading to heightened tensions between drillers and environmentalists. Indeed, the attorney general of New York has called for a moratorium on the practice in the Empire State.

Is fracking safe? And what are the potential benefits that will be forfeited if the practice is ended? Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with science correspondent Ronald Bailey to learn the truth about fracking. Bailey reports that the cases of contaminated water supplies were the result of poorly designed wells that had nothing to do with fracking itself. As important, he notes that the gas generated by fracking would not only massively increase American energy supply, it would do so with a relatively clean and cheap fuel.

Shot by Jim Epstein and Josh Swain; Edited by Swain.

Approximately 5:34 minutes.

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Tilting at Wind Turbines: Should the Government Subsidize Renewable Energy?

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:30:00 EST

Switching from conventional sources of electricity like coal and natural gas to renewables like wind and solar, our elected leaders tell us, will reduce pollution, advance renewable technology and spark a green jobs revolution.

Is renewable energy really a green pathway to a brighter economic future? Or is it nothing more than a heavily subsidized impossible dream?

To learn more, we spoke with Cal State Fullerton economist Robert Michaels and Mark Tholke, an executive at enXco.

Approximately 6.5 minutes.

Produced by Paul Feine and Alex Manning.

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Nick Gillespie on Fox Business' Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:00:00 EDT

On June 16, 2010 Reason's Nick Gillespie appeared on Fox News Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano to discuss estate taxes, Barack Obama's green-energy agenda, and the BP oil spill.

Approximately 11.30 minutes.

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Reason.tv's Nanny of the Month for November 2009

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:00:00 EST

Smoking, fast food, giant inflatable blue gorillas—no matter what it is, chances are some nanny wants to ban it. And this past month was no exception.

Reason.tv's October 2009 Nanny of The Month Award went to New York State Sen. Jeff Klein for his efforts to rid the Empire State of fish pedicures.

Who is the Nanny of the Month for November 2009?

The runners up include the California Energy Commission for banning big-screen TVs unless they conform to stringent new energy standards and the Food and Drug Administration, which is waging war against caffeinated booze drinks.

But can be only one Nanny of the Month, and this time it's ...

Click the video to learn the awful truth.

Nanny of the Month is produced by Ted Balaker. The director of photography is Alex Manning and the associate produce is Paul Detrick. Approximately 1.17 minutes.

This video is also available at Reason.tv's YouTube channel (subscribe now!).

And make sure to tune in next month for more examples of busybodies minding your own business.

Light Bulbs vs. The Nanny State

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

In September, the European Union banned the sale of 100-watt incandescent light bulbs, with lawbreakers facing up to $70,000 in fines. Over the next few years, bans on lower-wattage bulbs kick in. In the United States, similar legislation comes into play in 2012. The idea is to kickstart the market for compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), which use less energy than conventional incandescents. Although CFLs present any number of problems (even beyond a much higher initial cost), governments all over the globe are determined to make them the new standard.

Invented in its modern form by Thomas Edison in 1879, the light bulb became synonymous with a brilliant idea. Now, it seems, it's just one more symbol of a nanny state that increasingly dictates more choices in our public and private lives.

"Light bulbs vs. The Nanny State" is produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie. Approximately two minutes. Scroll down for embed code and downloadable versions.

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Ethanol

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Ethanol advocates claim that the biofuel is a cheap, renewable energy source that reduces pollution and our dependence on foreign oil. It sounds too good to be true—and it is.

Ethanol, especially the corn-based variety, is bad for taxpayers, bad for consumers, bad for the environment, and horrible for the world's poor. In fact, even environmentalists are critical of ethanol subsidies these days. The ethanol craze has distorted markets and increased the price of food worldwide. The only people who still support ethanol subsidies are the ethanol producers—and politicians from both sides of the aisle. Together, they make sure the subsidies keep coming.

In a recent interview about the current food crisis, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said, "If part of our problem is that the Chinese are going to eat meat and you've got to have corn and soybeans to feed the Chinese their meat, then why isn't it just as legitimate for the Chinese to go back and eat rice as it is for us to change our policy on corn to ethanol?"

Let them eat rice? So that American taxpayers can continue to pay people to turn corn into fuel?

Silly senator, corn is for food.

This seven-and-a-half-minute video explores the case against ethanol subsidies. Hosted by reason's Nick Gillespie and featuring Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey, it was produced by Paul Feine and PF Bentley.

For an audio podcast version, go here.